Section in Colour | Page Title Here Outreach and Widening Participation. Annual Report 2016/17 sheffield.ac.uk/outreach 1 The University of Sheffield | Outreach and Widening Participation Contents Contents Foreword 4 Subject specific outreach work 38 Outreach and Widening Music and Images 40 Participation at the University of Sheffield 6 Biomedical Science Work Experience 42 Research and collaboration 10 Things You Can’t Do In School 44 Sustainable Engineering 46 The Impact of a Widening Participation Programme on the Learning Experience of Medical Students: A Pilot Study 12 AMRC Training Centre 48 Sustained outreach programmes 14 Mature student activities 50 Discover US 16 Rediscover Your Potential 52 Discover Programme 18 Health and Human Sciences New Starter Programme 54 Realising Opportunities 20 US in Schools Mentoring 22 Cool to be Clever Club 24 #SheffOutreach 56 Vulnerable groups 26 Further information 58 School, college and campus based outreach 28 Sheffield Volunteering: Mock Trial workshop 30 Excellence Hub 32 Discover Study Skills 34 HEPPSY+ 36 2 3 The University of Sheffield | Outreach and Widening Participation Foreword Subject based sessions Foreword Campus Research visits and Universities have a vital role to play in affording opportunities evaluation to all who wish to further their understanding of the world and in so doing, to develop themselves as people. It is essential that these opportunities are open to everyone with the ability Aspiration and interest to be successful in achieving their goals. As such, raising we must reach out to those who ordinarily might not consider events university to be an option for them and this can take many forms; directly to them, indirectly via their schools and networks or by taking the University out to where they are. Interactive The extensive and effective work carried out by our Outreach and Stakeholder activities Widening Participation team is precisely targeted at this type of engagement outcome. The purpose of this report is to highlight key aspects of this work in an attempt to show the diversity and depth of the on-going activity aimed at widening participation and opening up the doors of the University to remove some of the mystique surrounding it for those less familiar with Higher Education. What This is not simply a local issue either and the programme of work stretches beyond the city and is often in partnership with others we do who have a similar set of aims. Student response continues to be very positive and while this is very pleasing, there is always more that can be done particularly as Government attention continues to focus on access to Higher Education. Sustained School and As a university we believe passionately in this agenda and I continue programmes college visits to be proud of what has been achieved and of the work undertaken by my colleagues and commend their work as outlined in this report. Professor Wyn Morgan Vice-President for Education Activities for all ages Information Study and advice skills about Higher support Education Continuing Professional Development for teachers 4 5 The University of Sheffield | Outreach and Widening Participation Outreach and Widening Participation at the University of Sheffield Outreach and Widening 50,723 Participation at the student engagments* University of Sheffield Participation 2016/17 During 2016/17 at the University of Sheffield we’ve seen our sustained widening participation programmes and our Worked with collaborative outreach work grow significantly, underpinned by increased engagement with schools and colleges. 7,702 students through In a challenging environment for the wider education sector, we have our sustained looked to use resources wisely. We have improved our targeting and outreach the efficiency of our programme recruitment, implementing an online programmes process to support speedier and more accurate outcomes. We are seeing very encouraging results in terms of the progress of widening participation students to Sheffield and the University continues to perform in line with its sector benchmarks. All of our outreach and widening participation activities are regularly reviewed and developed based on current practitioner research and feedback from students, parents and our partners. We take seriously our responsibility to build effectively on the excellent work undertaken by teachers and advisers. We also work closely with colleagues in our Widening Participation Research and Evaluation Unit (WPREU) to identify and implement best practice. We have been proud to be part of HEFCE’s new national widening participation initiative, the National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP), known locally as HEPPSY+. We continue to work with school, college and university partners to support progression to Higher Education from students in communities who are currently under-represented. Worked with 520 Delivered schools and colleges 1,554 activities Video Outreach and Widening Participation at the *engagements may include students who have University of Sheffield attended more than one outreach activity. 6 sheffield.ac.uk/outreach 7 The University of Sheffield | Outreach and Widening Participation Outreach and Widening Participation at the University of Sheffield The participation in Higher Education of local areas (POLAR) classification informs our targeting of WP activities. Throughout this report we aim to showcase the range of Academic Year % POLAR3Q1 % increase outreach we provide including: students taking part in sustained Discover – Sustained outreach programmes Programmes – School, college and campus based outreach 3 Quintile 1 growth 2016/17 49.91% (284) – Subject specific outreach work This, our second annual report, will also introduce the OLAR +16.89% P collaborative work we do, our Widening Participation 2015/16 33.02% (178) Research and Evaluation Unit (WPREU) and our work with vulnerable groups. As always, the engagement with teachers, advisers, parents and guardians is vital to our work, as well as our The charts below shows our progress over the past own staff and students who provide positive role models three years in terms of WP indicators. for those young people and adults beginning their journey to Higher Education. Special thanks go to all those involved with outreach and Young, full-time 87.9% widening participation activities, both here at the University first degree 86.9% and across the region through our schools, colleges and entrants from other stakeholders. state schools 86.7% I do hope you enjoy reading this report and look forward to continuing to work with you to progress the Widening Participation agenda. 17.1% Full-time first degree James Busson 16.0% Head of Outreach and BAME entrants Widening Participation 13.9% Young, full-time 8.9% first degree entrants from 8.2% low participation neighbourhoods 9.0% Mature full-time 23.8% Analysis internal of 2016/17 registration data* first degree entrants who 20.1% are from low 2016/17 2015/16 participation 19% neighbourhoods 2014/15 *figures taken from the Access Agreement 2018/19 based on UK domiciled students in the 1st December HESES population 8 9 Research and collaboration Research and collaboration World-leading research influences everything we do at the University of Sheffield – including our outreach and widening participation work. Our activities are developed taking into account external research, policy and recommendations from organisations such as the Sutton Trust, Office For Fair Access (OFFA) and Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). We consider sector advice alongside our own research and evaluation and use the data collected from students who take part, plus their feedback following the events in order to ensure we continuously develop our offer. Our increased focus on collecting evidence and conducting evaluation has influenced the development of our online application and student portal system – Outreach Online. This system, together with the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) database, ensures that we can monitor how the activities we provide are having a positive impact on students. The University’s Widening Participation Research and Evaluation Unit (WPREU) – established to monitor and evaluate activities and help to form our overall strategy – provides us with direct and up-to-date recommendations and informs the work that we do. The University’s widening participation strategy is influenced by the wider education, political and social environment, which in In 2016/17, the Outreach team and WPREU jointly recent years has seen more emphasis placed on collaboration between universities and consortia to work together in the delivery conducted an extensive research project which of outreach work. involved parents of Year 7 and Year 8 widening participation students in order to develop their The Higher Education Progression Partnership (HEPP), Realising Opportunities, Brilliant Club and Excellence Hub are all initiatives knowledge and help overcome the barriers to the University has successfully continued to be a part of Higher Education their children face. throughout 2016/17. The findings and feedback brought about a new Under the National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP), outreach programme – IMPACT – the programme a joint bid by the Higher Education Progression Partnership (HEPP), is comprised of events on campus and in schools the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, was awarded for students in Years 7 and 8 and their parents/ £13 million as part